I am sorry for not following your footprints
you know how we want to blaze our own trails
I’m more like the one who hides in the wild brambles along someone else’s path
stopping to pick the gathering moss from my toes
hoping my feet will stain a lovely shade of flowerless green
so I won’t need to buy socks
(too often my happy spirit falls out my sock holes)
damn, I don’t darn well
I am sorry for not visiting your fine table at tea time
sipping is a lost art and I become dumbstruck at the sight of delicate porcelain tuele
I can cower behind a steaming Starbuck’s Venti
latte, latte, latte
blow the foam
watch me smile all day pretending I’m a writer
enumerating every reason why my work isn’t on one shelf
not one, that’s why I dunk three lattes
and seek out your footprints while no one is watching
still, there is my spirit guide
she drinks naught
eats less than sips
her curved feet are bare and beautiful
her wings are tucked around her disheveled robes
she is proud of her life
passion burns hot in her breast
the embodiment of joy in simple musing
she pulls me away from the wild things that grow on another’s path
she kisses my cheek, returns my black socks patched with green threads
then she tosses me back onto the road where I started out
allowing me no words for excuses
“words,” she whispers in her gorgeous velvet-throwback voice
are for storiesspirit guide sketched this past weekend while at a boisterous high school wrestling tournament

It has been said of the song, Wildfire, it arose from the artist’s subconscious
–a Native American tale about a ghost horse

mythical and sweetoh, imagine a golden Palomino mare carrying sunlight upon her hidehow she would warm your aching body
settle your bonesferry you to another placedistant from worry
away from strifeall you hearrhythmic patter of spiriting hooveswinged forelocks lemon-white mane wrapping your bare skin keeping you secure she gallops across the planet
without grazing earthyour stomach liftsyour heart steadiespeace she findsfor younever the same place
butif you should call her twiceif you should summon Wildfireto guide you awayshe may just bring you
back home again
sketched on the way to New Hampshire last week, after listening to Michael Martin Murphy sing his Wildfire

I want to again thank those of you who sometimes read my verse. I’ve been amping up the language or at least trying to. I’m not always comfortable pushing the pub button with some of these posts–last night’s is a good example. I challenge myself to step out of my comfort zone. I hope by doing this, I’ll discover other directions to pursue. I do admit it is fun dreaming up saucy voices–though these ‘characters’ make me the saddest after they’ve been fleshed out. With each piece I try to get away from who I am and write as if I’m someone else. Sometimes these ‘personalities’ beg the question-okay, AnnMarie–what’s the next move. I’m not always sure. It is this uncertainty that pushes me onward.
Thank you, again.
I’ve called on Wildfire more than once:)

“the writing has to be real”he screams into her eardrumsthe war of words hasn’t even begun marching
no matterhe mercilessly continues the assault“raw introspection must bleed from every serif”now that’s delicious, she muses imagining him dispatched with a saber of nasty grammarhell-vetica she’s chosen – no ascenders or descenders – assholethe battle is heating upno support arriving for her open flanks
he is ever wicked and callousreal and raw lay open and bleeding those nails of her hers bitten down to the coreforever scratching at that mountainblanks hit her from behind like Kennedy bullets
she almost fantasizes the sun rising over a groundswellin a show of desperate forceshe slams the laptop closedand swings ’round to lance him with her army of dried-up penshe’s too quickelusive bastard
those words of his –
lead cannonballs sinking her fingertips
“the writing has to be real…”

the only thing real in the room right nowis her headache and heartacheempty againand there’s nothing she can do to protect herself

so far behind where I normally am for this time of year
as I suffer from HOHO OCD
don’t like doing the crazed shopping thing
with the reindeer-like snorting
and elfin foot twitching on some store’s yule tile

many changes ’round my gingerbread house this year
nothing horrid
just many needles simultaneously falling off the evergreen
this mad dropping conifer has been obstructing my path to
holiday hype preparedness

it happened today
while I was feeling very sorry for myself
and all that I had to accomplish
to create another Merry Memory

on the sick side of the pediatrician’s office
two little girls sharing the common bond
of a Christmas Cough and Holiday Hack
I sat there with the delicate daughter
(mind you, not so delicate when it comes to a throat culture, without a helmet she could take out Odell)
one of these precious little girls began singing,Silver and Gold
then the other darling chimed in

my self-involved brain began singing along with them
an octave lower for the chorus
when they changed up the lyrics
they didn’t sing, “…silver and gold, silver and gold…”
they sang, “…silver and gold and blue and green and red…”
and they kept going
giggling while adding colors

before I knew it
I was giggling along with them
and the cranky old lady that had been sitting on my heart all day
reunited with her Christmas spirit
not what I expected
not at all

For those of you who celebrate, I extend a Merry Christmas
For all, I wish you a warm and exciting New Year full of hope and possibility

a dank sticky corner burdened oak tops disturbed for decades by descending mugs trying to lighten bleak thoughts ambiguous gouges in once flawless veneer bear tired witness to lives emptied into shot glasses arranged in firing line formation to end pain quicklygulping down hope for one night’s reprieve sweating spirits absorb peace into the soul or harbingers of disrupted thought lifting glass bottoms to reach the throat swallowing for a new life or the promise of sleep until tomorrow where the sun will rise and another day offers

a choice…

spider-she

I used the spider here thinking how drinking lures and can trap in an endless web if we crawl too closely for too long…

Dear Friends,
As many of you know, I refer to my 6’7″ spouse as the giant husband. Now, one doesn’t go about meeting giant husbands without first palling-around with other large people. There was one such grand person who I affectionately called Big Mike. Big Mike was a six-foot-four, life-loving, grapefruit-muscled, enormous hearted Irishman. In short, Big Mike was the infectious laughter at the party. He was the one always wearing a perpetual smile. He was Big Mike.

June 5, 1993 was the night I met the giant husband for the very first time. I was hanging out with friends at a small town pub. I was with my dear lifelong friend Joe, and of course, Big Mike. Big Mike was – for lack of a better description – ‘busting up the joint!’ He was letting fly, joke after joke in his big booming voice. The giant husband’s roommate at the time happened to be laughing along with the rest of us. The roommate phoned the giant husband. He informed him of Big Mike’s antics and suggested he come to the pub.

Not too long after the roommate’s phone call, this giant of a man – bigger than Big Mike – was filling-up the small pub’s doorway. His dark hair touched the door frame above and his broad shoulders met either side. As the giant husband stood there, Big Mike, larger-than-life, announced to the room while pointing at the giant husband, “and there’s the biggest man I know!” And the rest they say, is history…

Big Mike left this world too soon. I find when there is a clear sky and the sun is out, I can almost hear Big Mike’s booming laughter. I painted this portrait of Big Mike for his mother.

Thank you and goodnight. May your dreams be filled with the booming-gentle laughter of sweet spirits…